Test Setup

The Spectrum of Sound

As stated earlier we have had both the TSX-80 and the TSX-130 in our labs before and reviewed them thoroughly. Both gave differing results. While the TSX-80 did not impress, the TSX-130 came through our trials with flying colors. But that was more than a year ago when the market space, expectations and options differed from today. So although Yamaha TSX-140 is billed as their top of the line desktop docking audio system from the same series and shares many traits with the TSX-130, it has its work cut out for it.

The Yamaha TSX-140 has been equipped with the hardware to surmount the hurdles that its other counterparts were unable to clear. We were especially keen to see if the bass reflex ports helped buck up the low end spectrum, which was particularly underwhelming on the smaller TSX-80.

Test Setup

Traditionally, we tested speakers over four categories - CD, MP3, movies and games. But seeing that the Yamaha TSX-140 isn't a pair of proper speakers per se, and users likely won't be using it for movies and games, we’ll be restricting our tests to CD and MP3 testing suites. Basically, we want to look out for the TSX-140’s musical sensibilities. Hence, we’ll be playing a variety of different tracks to see how the speakers would perform across different genres such as acoustic, jazz, orchestral, trance and movie sound tracks.

While different users may have certain preferences for particular sonic palates, we try to remain as neutral and balanced as possible when reviewing audio devices. With that in mind, we chose test materials that span across a diverse range of audio variety. We used an Apple iPod Classic (160GB) to playback the relevant audio tracks compiled from our CD and MP3 Testing suite.